has anyone got any advice about living without love?

[patriciapractical]

NC as I'm ashamed. I don't know how to live without love. I don't have a partner. I have been on my own for a long time. Can anyone tell me what to do? I just can't handle it any more. I am looking for some advice in addition to: have you tried online dating, joined a hobby group, made sure you keep in contact with friends, volunteer, exercise, help others, try something new. I know all those things. They are great and help get through the day but doing those things does not make up for a loveless life. Has anyone come to terms with this condition and can tell me something useful? I just don't know what to do anymore. I had some therapy this year and specifically raised the subject of loneliness with the therapist. In fact that was my "presenting" issue. This is killing me. Maybe someone here at least found peace with it and can tell me how to do the same.

I am single without children and 50. I do feel a lack of love sometimes, but also find that my Christian faith helps. I do feel I matter to some in my church community in aa way that is more than just a friendship. I feel genuinely loved by them. I also have lovely relationships with children of friends and feel I can give to them by caring for them, playing with them and give their parents a break too! I know that I matter to God, and that he doesn't see single people as being inferior (something that is subtly communicated a lot by TV, adverts and media generally). I do find it hard sometimes that I don't have another human for whom I am most significant.

I'm 58, lived on my own since my divorce 20 years ago and just had one long distance relationship since then that I hung on to for far too long rather than be alone.
I have been completely alone for 3 years now. Just have my mum who is 84 and no other family. I don't have any friends - I know a lot of people through Meet Up groups but although they are friends - they are not friends that I could rely on or ask for help.
I go on singles holidays, love having people around me but it's hard to adjust being alone again when I get home.

I suppose I cope because I have learnt not to hope for anything more.

That sounds awfully sad - its just how it is and you learn to get on with it. I am a happy person really :)

Smart, funny, successful women. I don't get it. It is unfair.

I think it's basic demographics. I know very few single men my age and I don't fancy any of them. I don't think of it as "unfair" as I don't think it's one of those situations in which fairness is a possibility. Out of luck some people meet the right person at the right time. A lot of people make do with the wrong person (or someone who's wrong in the long term). And some people just decide it's better to be single if the choice is a not-great relationship or no relationship.

I tried OLD but it mainly seems to consist of men my age looking for women 15 years younger than they are. Or men 15 years older looking for women my age and whilst I don't mind an age gap, I do mind dating someone who seems possessive and controlling, is physically very unattractive, has the personality of Jeremy Clarkson* and who seems to think he has a right to date someone funny, intelligent, gorgeous and a lot younger.

• who in my book is a wanker, in case that wasn't clear.

I have been single for 18 years - my last relationship finished when I was 27. My situation is slightly different in that it was a conscious choice but I know it can be difficult if you don't want it.

I have a lot of online friends and hobbies and I enjoy spending my time on my own when I'm not working. It may sound trite but it's a state of mind. That said, most people don't want that kind of lifestyle, and I understand that.

my only advice would be to do what YOU want to do with your life - if you are fulfilled in other ways, you don't miss having a partner. And if all else fails, spend some time on the relationships board, it shows that being in a relationship really isn't always a great experience.

And as PP have said, it's about valuing yourself rather than wanting someone else to make you feel validated.

Muckogy Thanks for telling us that but Bloody hell that's not old!.

I read a scary article on the seeming shortage of men who are available across several age ranges and this it seems is being reflected by the experiences here. I'll see if i can dig that article up and post a link to it.

There is that silly sods of men wanting a woman x years younger but it's not simply that, its the way the odds and numbers stack up even for younger women and the way that dating is carried out these days the root cause was the internet its been the biggest upheaval since the transition to an agricultural economy around a thousand odd years ago!. As bizarre as that sounds!.

I'd love some advice on this too.

Love from my dcs is wonderful and keeps me going every day, but its not their job to keep me going! My marriage was loveless, so at least theres an honesty about being alone now. Friends have let me down, family even worse.

To be fair I've made no effort with online dating, and even less effort with the RL kind, so its partly my fault. Then again I've just been surviving so no time really.

OP, I can empathise. I have my children, but other than them I don't have love, and I tend to just feel guilt and a huge sense of responsibility where they are concerned.

I don't have close friendships for a number of reasons.

I'm 40 and it makes me desperately sad to realise I'm going to live out the rest of my life never having been loved.

It breaks my heart in fact.

Another one here who's been single for 20 years (following desertion by husband for OW). Recently I suddenly got a vision of my future - another 20plus years of not being anyone's 'significant other', alongside ageing - and the only word for what I felt is... bleak. Can't say I'm looking forward to it, but I suppose we'll make the best of it.

I sometimes reflect on the early 20th century, and how there must have been thousands of young women who grew old with no opportunity for partnership because so many young men were killed in action. Plus ça change...

I think inthe early 20th century the women died younger than they do now.

Thr thought that this is it now for another 40 years terrifies me.

I do genuinely hope that I don't live to a ripe old age.

Don't give up on hope FolkGirlgood love is out there, I am 68 & still have hope to meet a good woman to share good times with, I have never done on line dating, nor ever will.

Me too, stillfolkgirl, and that's even though I have grown up DCs. It'll be nice to see DGCs etc in due course, but they'll all have their own lives, which still leaves me with an awful lot of alone time with reducing faculties and energy...
Sorry, OP, we're not exactly lifting your spirits, are we? I hope you, like me, find it oddly comforting to know that others feel the same...

I wish with all my heart I could wave a wand and make you feel the love you desire. I am a man, a very ordinary one, and I would also like to be loved and worry every day and every lonely night I will not be. You are not alone.

i reckon there's never been as many single people as there are now.
it seems a growing number of men don't want to commit.
some women are learning to accept this and manage without them.

There seems to be a bit of loneliness about. I waiver between raging against it and telling anyone who will listen "I will never give up" and feeling as though I could possibly find some peace with it. I cannot bear the idea that I will never have sex again. I just cannot come to terms with that.

Folkgirl - 40 is really not very old! Why on earth have you given up???

Broken - I've read some of your other posts around the place and if you will take a bit of advice from someone older than you. Maybe make different choices next time. There will be a next time, and a next time, and you will need to decide who is going to get close to you.

Hugs to everyone. (But not in a soppy way, in a supportive way

People tell you who they are by what they say and do. Listen to them! Hope that doesn't sound trite. We've all made mistakes. I've made a gazillion and I wish I could stop people making them as well.

Loneliness is very dark and suffocating sometimes. Sometimes we can fight our day into the sunshine, sometimes we have to accept that day will be in the shade.

/ for all of us, and good thoughts and love to all

Lovely post NoisyOyster

ThisIsStillFolkGirl Only 40 please don't give up hope same goes for most all of the other posters in this thread.

Muckogy I'm beginning to think your right. Anyone any idea why this might be the case?. Is it perhaps that men don't want to commit at as young an age as they once did?.

Exactly... don't give up hope! don't write off the rest of your life...

patricia in my case, it's a history of an abusive childhood that's led to not being loved.

I married a man who I knew didn't love me, but was a good friend, because I didn't think love was possible and I thought that if my mother believed someone loved me, she might see it too. She didn't and was never going to.

Since we separated 3 years ago I've been on a number of dates and had 2 short relationships.

In both relationships, the men both said they fell for my personality/character. One in particular spoke very fondly of the the qualities in me that he was attracted to. The other, I had a very strong connection with and we just got on really well.

The problem was that they ultimately wanted me but in a younger, slimmer, more attractive package. So I ended both relationships.

I can't do much about it really, especially given I was just a nicely curvy size 12 at the time.

I've put on a couple of stones now to keep people away and it seems to be working because I don't want to go through it again.

My mother told me I was unattractive and no one would ever love me. Seems that it's true and mother did know best afterall. I wouldn't recognise love or know what to do with it anyway now.

The hardest part of not being loved is knowing that no one values me, no one thinks I'm worth anything, there's no one to share happy things with, no one to support in the hard times. Just stupid things like if I died tomorrow, there would be no one to organise my funeral; when my marriage broke down, no one who might call to ask if I was ok; and, when I turned 40, no one to celebrate with.

I'm sorry, I know I sound like a right misery! But I'm not like this irl. The people I do know have no idea I feel like this.